The door bell rings. You’ve been ready for the last 30 minutes, waiting patiently for this moment to come. Brimming with equal parts nerves and excitement you open the door to be greeted by a warm smile and a comforting voice. “You ready?” It’s your driving instructor, here to take you to the test centre to pass your driving exam which you’ve been working towards for the last 12 months.
What’s that got to do with a singing exam? Let me tell you why singing exams are exactly like driving tests, and why I choose NOT to take my students through exams of any genre.
In your driving lessons, you cover exactly what is going to come up in the driving test. You learn how to check your oil, you’re tested on your eyesight by reading faraway number plates. You practise reverse manoeuvring around a corner, the three point turn and a hill start. You parallel park – badly. You follow instruction about when to change gear and are constantly reminded; “mirror, signal, manoeuvre. Mirror, signal, manoeuvre.” You don’t learn to drive a car. You learn how to pass your test.
One you’ve passed your test – then you learn how to drive.
You get to know your car, what all the buttons and levers do and when exactly you might need them. You learn how to match speed on a slip road to join a busy motorway. You practise parallel parking and get it wrong 100 times before you master it. You discover how capable you are of driving safely through tricky little roads with dodgy sat nav directions and the kids arguing in the back. It’s at this point that you start to embrace the freedom that comes from an open road and the knowledge that you can go anywhere you like. It’s only now that you find the joy in it.
The voice is complex. It’s intricate and nuanced. There are no cookie cutter voices. There will always be new sounds to explore, new techniques to try and new ways to strengthen and explore your voice. If you wanted to, you could spend a whole lifetime learning this skill and developing your craft, growing as a musician and an artist and continually uncovering new things.
Passing a test and ticking a box is going to rob you of the joy of exploring your voice.
Just like driving lessons teach you how to pass a driving test, singing lessons that work towards an exam will only help you to pass that exam. Passing that exam may give you permission to become complacent and stop exploring new ways your voice can work for you.